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Doug Bower is a freelance writer and book author. His credits include The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Houston Chronicle, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Associated Content, Transitions Abroad, International Living, Escape Artist, and The Front Porch Syndicate. He is a Content Provider with Associated Content writing weekly columns. He is also a writer with EzineArticles.com where he has 325 Active articles, resulting in 116,463 views that have been syndicated in more than 4,294 online publications. Book Credits: · ... [More]

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A Guanajuato, Mexico Vacation Still Makes Sense Even in Scary Economic Times
[Travel-and-Leisure:Destination-Tips] Though the Worldwide Economic Crisis seems to have the world in a tizzy of worry and despair, Gringos are still coming to Mexico. I remember last year at this time unprecedented numbers of Gringos were walking the streets of my adopted Mexican home of Guanajuato.

The Uninvited Church Parishioners in Guanajuato, Mexico
[Travel-and-Leisure:Destination-Tips] Arriving at Guanajuato's Templo de la Compañía is always a strange experience. It's a church connected to the former Jesuit seminary, which is now the University of Guanajuato. It sits on one corner of an intersection diagonally across from the main Post Office and faces the Casa del Agua hotel.

Sneaking an Early Peek at Our Lady of Guanajuato
[Travel-and-Leisure:Destination-Tips] From my vantage point I could see everything. Sitting in a small sidewalk café with the very original name, El Cafe (The Cafe), I was working on my third cup of Nescafe while watching Mexicans walking by like someone was chasing them.

Notes From Life in the Twilight Zone - Mexican Style
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] I've come to believe in recent years that living in Mexico, and for a variety of reasons, is as close as you can get to living in The Twilight Zone. The reasons for this are not all Mexican, I have to say from the beginning.

Conquer the Recession Blues - Read an EBook!
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:E-Books] The onset of the "Oh-no-it's-a-recession" panic caused a lot of would-be travelers and potential expatriates to Mexico to put a screeching halt to not only their plans to take a trip down to my neck of the Mexican woods but they've also stopped their research. This is what most of us who have made this magnificent transition have done - research. We read, no we devour, everything we can on hotels, hostels, restaurants, rentals, real estate, and some of us delve into culture and language before making a reconnaissance trip down South of the Border to check out the lay ...

Guanajuato, Mexico Tourist Season 2008
[Travel-and-Leisure] In the middle of the night when the bombing (Day of the Dead fireworks) began and I was startled awake by my three-foot, straight-up jump out of bed, I suddenly remembered I had forgotten to write my annual article about this year's Guanajuato Tourist Season! In case you don't know, I have been writing a special-interest article each year about the Gringo Invasion of Guanajuato. These invaders are called tourists.

Living in Mexico - The Pretense of it All
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] No matter your motive for moving to Mexico, you should equip yourself with as many tools as you can to help you work through the intricacies of a vastly foreign language and culture. There are two tools that I believe are "musts" for living in Mexico. One is a working knowledge of Spanish.

Living in Mexico - People Seem Happy Here
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] The pursuit of material things, according to the scientists at World Values Survey, is a "happiness suppressant." If that is true, then you've just got to wonder how this affects Americans who have devolved into a material-seeking society.

San Luis Potosi - Our Arrival
[Travel-and-Leisure:Destination-Tips] We pulled into San Luis Potosi about 2:00 p.m. after a very pleasant run on one of Mexico's fine bus lines. I love Mexican buses. Mexico did what I am convinced no other country on the earth has ever quite figured out.

Cervantino 2008 - Narco Terrorism
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] Of all the Cervantino Festival events that roll into the city of Guanajuato each October I believe my least favorite has to be that which sends many locals fleeing the city for three weeks each year. The ghoulish punks, the vampirish Goth, or the "hippies"-as the Guanajuatenses are wont to call them-are not what the founders, I am quite sure, had in mind for the Cervantino Festival of the Arts. Our first Cervantino was in the fall of 2003.

Guanajuato Mexico - A Slower Pace of Life - Sort Of
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] Mexico is a land of vast contrasts, sometimes-confusing contradictions, and a culture that constantly will leave the American expat guessing-for a lifetime. You've no doubt heard that México has a slower pace of life. Well, that is true-sort of.

Guanajuato Tourist Season 2007
[Travel-and-Leisure] About this time of year, I normally start haranguing about tourist season in the little central Mexican town where I live, Guanajuato. If you haven't been following my articles, and if not, why not, you would know that I do not take kindly to the usual American and Canadian tourists who come sweeping into town to make life a hellish existence for the locals.

My Man-Boobies in Guanajuato, Mexico
[Health-and-Fitness:Mens-Issues] Since moving to Guanajuato, Mexico, we've lived in four different houses. The first was in a barrio called Puquero. The other three have been in the barrio called Pastita.

Guanajuato - A New Restaurant in Town
[Food-and-Drink:Restaurant-Reviews] For the past three and a half years, I've been waiting for a restaurant to come along that would prove, once and for all, that Guanajuato, Mexico, does not lack fine cuisine. Guidebooks say Guanajuato does not have any good restaurants. Now, I can put a stop to this nonsense once and for all-I hope.

It's Finally Here!
[Travel-and-Leisure] It has begun. The Central Mexican yearly ritual has finally arrived, a month late I might add, and life as we know it has changed and will be different for the next 10-12 weeks.

Living in Mexico - Emergency Services
[Travel-and-Leisure] I was in a bus with my wife heading back to Guanajuato from Texas. We had visited my childhood friend Mark.

Mexican-American Culture Clash
[Travel-and-Leisure] Just when I thought it was safe to start writing about some other subject, this little lovely comes along: "MEXICO CITY - President Vicente Fox refused to apologize Monday for saying Mexicans in the United States do the work that blacks won't - a comment widely viewed as acceptable in a country where blackface comedy is still considered funny and nicknames often reflect skin color." [1] And who, predictably, in the Unites States is jumping on the racial bandwagon but Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

Mexican Spaminator
[Arts-and-Entertainment:Humor] When we decided to move to Mexico, one of the most exciting things that popped into my mind was that I would get a new Internet Service Provider and finally get off the 300,000,000 Spam lists that I was on. I thought for sure I would go insane if I received one more "How to Enlarge Your Manhood" piece of Spam-as if I needed to do that anyway (yeah right).

Is This Brazil's Roswell?
[Reference-and-Education:Paranormal] On January 19-20, 1997 Brazil's I Centro Integrado de Defesa Aerea e Controle de Trafego Aereo or Integrated Center on Air Defense and Air Traffic Control received a warning from the U.S. North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) of an incoming bogy. NORAD estimated it would crash in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais.

UFO-Aliens, President Nixon, and Jackie Gleason
[Reference-and-Education:Paranormal] What do UFO-Aliens, President Nixon, and Jackie Gleason all have in common? The evidence indicated that not only were most Presidents since Truman UFO-Alien savvy, but also that Eisenhower may have had an encounter with representatives of an Alien Nation and agreed to terms in a treaty called The Greada Treaty. Richard M. Nixon was, of course, Eisenhower's Vice-President. Whether Nixon had an interest in the UFO-Alien issue or not is spelled out in this story.

Mexican Living - The People of Mexico
[Travel-and-Leisure:Destination-Tips] There is simply a plethora of wonderful things about living in Mexico-the consistently calm climate, the cheap cost-of-living, the best foods on the planet, dodging dog-poop on the sidewalks. These are just a few.

Mexicans - Police Brutality - Really?
[News-and-Society:Crime] A reader asked me, referring to Mexico, "How could you live in a country that is so corrupt?" This was based partly on a cited incident in a story by Tim Donnelly entitled, Sanctuary Lost, in which Mr. Donnelly says...

Chickens, Mexico, and NAFTA
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] Here's a very interesting little tidbit: Americans never understand their responsibility in the Mexican Immigration to the U.S. debacle. They will blame everyone under the sun, and then some, rather than look inward to themselves as major contributors to the problem.

When I Run Out of Ideas
[Writing-and-Speaking:Writing] I do on occasion run out of ideas for my column writing. I do this after finishing a huge writing project like a book. I am just plain "written out" and am fresh out of things to say. When this happens, I turn to the news and am rarely disappointed.

Mentor For Hire Services Eases Your Move to Mexico
[Real-Estate:Moving-Relocating] Sometimes I marvel at how my wife and I arrived in Guanajuato, Mexico, with so little Spanish and with so few cultural skills. Somehow we managed to survive some pretty severe bumps in the expatriation road. It was in our ninth month of living here when we decided we were sufficiently equipped to handle venturing away from the warm and secure nest that we rented from an American expatriate who had excellent bilingual skills.

Mexicans - A 10-Year-Old Delight
[News-and-Society] There has been much talk in the news about the so-called "illegal alien" problem in the United States. As a writer and someone who has expatriated to Mexico, I try to keep my writing finger on the pulse of the news copy coming out of the United States.

Mexico - Flora and Fauna
[Travel-and-Leisure:Destination-Tips] Mexico does not have much in the way of flora or fauna that will kill you. Unlike Australia, where almost everything can kill you, Mexico is harmless-to a point.

Living in Mexico - Guanajuato Vacation
[Travel-and-Leisure:Destination-Tips] Survival Tips for your trip to the city of Guanajuato: 1.) Realize that though merchants want your tourist dollar, this city has been primarily a Mexican tourist site. There will not be vast hordes of workers in the tourist industry who will be able to speak English.

Mexico - Death in Mexico
[Self-Improvement:Grief-Loss] Death: No thank you. Dying: Gives me a panic attack. Burial: Not today, please. Of all the subjects I could write about, this one is my least favorite. It, in fact, could easily send me into the mother of all anxiety fits. Nevertheless, it is necessary to visit the subject since I now live in another country.

Why You Have to Listen First and Speak Later in Second Language Learning
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] If you've been following my articles on Second Language Acquisition, you know I've made a big deal about seeking to comprehend the language you've chosen to learn before trying to speak or produce in the language. I've used the imagery of a horse-drawn cart to illustrate the question of which comes first: learning grammar or listening-speaking? I would still venture to guess that 99.

Mexico - We Are the Borg-Gringos - You Will Be Assimilated, Resistance is Futile
[Travel-and-Leisure] I have a general understanding of the gringo communities in some Mexican cities and what's happened there historically and what is currently happening. I have a specific understanding of two cities, San Miguel de Allende and Guanajuato, since I live in one of those cities and have "informants" in the other.

The Queen of Tonala Jalisco Mexico
[Travel-and-Leisure:Destination-Tips] I had an appointment with Her Majesty, The Queen! I had never been to Tonala, Jalisco, Mexico, before this week.

Mexican Living - Something's Got to Be Done!
[Arts-and-Entertainment:Humanities] Mexico needs to do something about the behavior of Gringos who come to their country who are hell-bent on acting out the Ugly American Syndrome stereotype no matter what. I concluded this after an early morning shopping trip with the wife to the local Supermarket. There I saw this 70-year-old hippie, with his gun moll, cussing up one aisle and down the other looking for liquor.

The Politics of Expatriating to Mexico
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] Writing articles about Americans who expatriate to Mexico is not fun. If you are an expat who realizes you got bamboozled by the "There's-a-Fantasy-Island-Welcoming-Party-waiting-just-for-you rhetoric", and you want to say so, forget it! You will be slandered into silence or threatened or both!

San Luis Potosi's Magnificent Architecture
[Travel-and-Leisure] The Plaza de Armas is ringed by shops, both big and small, some eateries, and of course, the magnificently grandiose La Catedral. The most exciting thing I found was a shoe store that had New Balance shoes in my size!

San Luis Potosi's Plaza De Armas
[Travel-and-Leisure] The next morning, we popped up and prepared for a day to explore a place we'd never been before. I had been hearing nothing but good things about this town and my time spent in it would not find any contradictions to those reports. San Luis Potosi is located in a large and expansive plateau that sits in much of northern and central Mexico.

Mexican Living - What Makes You Happy?
[Self-Improvement:Happiness] Many ask me this question: "Did moving to Mexico make you happier?" My answer to that question is a resounding "no!" Does that shock you? Does that concern you? Does that cause you to pause? Do more questions come to mind?

Mexican Living - Myth Busting
[News-and-Society] Myth One: Mexicans are lazy, good-for-nothings. I mention this one first because it is one of the vilest myths and an excellent example of Americans' xenophobic stereotyping.

Have You Thanked Mexico Yet?
[News-and-Society] All Americans, everywhere, should be required to watch videotapes of members of the Mexican military pouring into Texas bringing humanitarian aid to the victims of hurricane Katrina. Doctors, nurses, medical supplies, and life's essentials were loaded on trucks and the Mexican convoy trudged into Texas.

Mexican Living - The Unexplained
[Arts-and-Entertainment:Humanities] The inexplicable bothers me. It always has. You know, the "Unsolved Mysteries" that plague mankind. I know I must have some brain damage from all the headache-inducing mysteries I have tried to figure out in my lifetime.

Mexican Living - Too Dang Fat!
[Health-and-Fitness:Weight-Loss] I thought I could avoid this when we moved to Mexico. I thought being here would effect a permanent change. I didn't think I would have to struggle with this anymore. I was wrong!

Mexican Living - Issues of Life
[Arts-and-Entertainment:Humanities] This morning when I got out of bed, I had some severe issues that have been worrying me. Friends and family wonder just what I do all day as an American Expatriate. I worry and I am good at it.

Mexican Living - Daily Schedule of an Expatriate
[Arts-and-Entertainment:Humanities] I was wondering if you might be interested in what I do with my time as an expatriate and if I have any sort of real life. I guarantee you that I do. Here is an example of my life...

Living in Mexico - It's the Rainy Season and I'm Bored
[Arts-and-Entertainment:Humor] We've been holed up in the house pretty much now for two weeks and counting. We venture out between downpours. Such is life in Central Mexico during the rainy season.

Mexico - Party Time
[Travel-and-Leisure] Mexico is the land of fiestas. What this word means exactly is celebration but also to indicate a party or holiday. Mexicans will have a party or celebration for any or no reason at all.

Mexican Living - So You Want to Expatriate?
[Arts-and-Entertainment:Humanities] Expatriate wannabes often ask us how we managed our expatriation to Guanajuato, Mexico. They want to know how we overcame the seemingly overwhelming logistics of deciding where to live, if it's affordable, if there is reasonable medical care, how to find housing, can Americans find work, what about visas, and will the culture shock be too great to handle.

Mexican Living - Doctors, Doctors, Doctors
[Health-and-Fitness] I am sick. I don't know what's wrong nor if what I have has an official name. Maybe they call it,"Ah-ha-now-you-can't-breathe-well-and-feel-like-you-are-going-to-die" virus. I don't know. I will probably go to the doctor tomorrow if I am not feeling better.

Teaching English in Mexico - A Decent Living
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] What's more disappointing than a person who makes a promise he can't keep? A person who makes a promise that is a lie. Many promises to make a "decent living" teaching English in Mexico are just that-a lie.

Mexican Living - Haircuts, Doctors, and Things
[Health-and-Fitness:Beauty] There is a universal, absolute, immutable, infrangible, and inviolable fact of the universe (like gravity and bad breath) that one rarely considers: No matter what you tell your haircut person (notice how nonsexist that was) about how you want your hair cut it will NEVER come out the way you want it, EVER! You will get the haircut the person who is cutting your hair wants to give you. This has always been true since Adam first asked Eve to cut his hair and it came out looking like the raccoon he just named. ...

Understanding Mexican Culture - Part 1
[Travel-and-Leisure] In the series of columns I've written, to the tune of around 300, and four books during a period of four years, I've attempted to present my observations of what I've experienced living in central Mexico in the city of Guanajuato. To say that it has been interesting is to make a gross understatement.

San Luis Potosi Shopping Malls
[Travel-and-Leisure:Destination-Tips] We wanted to not only see San Luis Potosi, but also take some time to do some much-needed shopping. When we moved to Guanajuato, we wanted to live in a mostly pedestrian town so we would not have to have a car.

What is Total Immersion in Learning a Second Language?
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] In the 1990's when I was contemplating learning Spanish, I was told repeatedly by well-meaning friends that if I really wanted to learn Spanish I would have to live in a country in which Spanish was the dominate spoken tongue. If you Google "Spanish Immersion," you will get 1,790,000 hits. After exhausting myself by reading about 250 websites, all of which tried very hard to get me to enroll in their costly Spanish Immersion Courses located in various Spanish-speaking countries, which would have required me to re-mortgage my home a billion times plus ...

Mexico - Let's Go to the Movies!
[Arts-and-Entertainment:Movies-TV] I love going to the movies. I always have. I can remember the highlight of every Saturday while growing up was when my Dad would give us all 25 cents and off we would go to some movie that was playing at the Dickenson.

Mexico - Expat Woes
[Travel-and-Leisure:Destination-Tips] August 1, 2003, after living my entire existence in the United States of America, I moved to Mexico with my wife of 20 years. We settled in Guanajuato, Mexico, for the simple reason that we could no longer afford to live in the United States. Afflicted with a chronic illness, we could no longer afford the medical treatment. It was like trying to buy the Kansas City Chiefs football team.

How to Deal With Vocabulary When Learning a New Language
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] In my quest to achieve native-like fluency in Spanish, I have struggled with an issue that is common to all language learners, whether one is learning a dead language like Latin or one of the many modern languages currently spoken on the planet: vocabulary. The one universal struggle is the monumental task of mastering enough vocabulary to sound as close to a native as possible. "One needs perhaps 20,000 words to begin to sound somewhat native-like, but 100,000 words should be the goal of the second-language learner.

Mexico - Driving Hazards
[Travel-and-Leisure:Destination-Tips] I hate driving a car with a passion. I know this is a strange statement coming from an American. I've never liked getting into a car and driving a gasoline-filled bomb (they have a habit of exploding on impact with something immovable).

I Know You Haven't Thanked Mexico
[News-and-Society] I get letters from readers. Oh boy, do I get letters from readers! I received one in response to my September 11, 2005, column entitled "Have You Thanked Mexico Yet?". The subject line of this guy's e-mail read, "Have You Thanked Mexico Yet?

Are Mexicans Really Sucking Dry American Health-Care?
[News-and-Society] If you've been following my series of columns on the Mexican immigrant issue you know that I have been taking the position that most, if not all, of the vitriolic, hysteria-induced, bordering on the racist, rhetoric about Mexican immigrants sucking dry America's health care system is not based on critical thinking skills. But, rather, it is based on general lack of critical thinking of maybe even the majority of the American Public. This is but one of the anti-Mexican Xenophobe's issues-health care-about which they rant and about which I write.

Mexico - Americanizing Mexico
[News-and-Society] The other day while watching a local Mexican TV show to improve my Spanish (yeah, right), this unsettling TV commercial was shown. Several teenagers, carrying their bottles of pop (the advertised product), wanted to go swimming at a public pool. Unfortunately, it was closed. They decided to break into the place.

Mexico - Crime
[News-and-Society:Crime] When I told my best friend, an Assistant U.S. Attorney, my wife and I were moving to Mexico, his reply was as follows: "I guess you won't have access to a telephone or the Internet." I was dumbfounded almost to the point of not being able to make a coherent reply!

Mexico - Going Native
[Travel-and-Leisure:Destination-Tips] If you want to expatriate to Mexico to find an affordable cost of living then there is one thing you must do--Go Native! Now, this is not as scary as you might think. I am not talking about living in the jungles of Puerto Vallarta and hoping the locals will show you how to beat your clothes clean on the rocks "down to the river", (I've seen some Mexicans still doing this).

Life in a Steppe Climate
[Travel-and-Leisure:Destination-Tips] If you were to sit in my living room and look out the picture window, you would see an enormous mountain that is about one-half mile from my front door. I have named it "Butt-mountain" for the butt-like rock formation that sits on its top.

Mexico - Oh Behave!
[Travel-and-Leisure:Destination-Tips] Do Americans have a sullied reputation in foreign countries? I think they just might indeed!

Mexico - The Weather is a Mess
[Travel-and-Leisure:Destination-Tips] Every year there is a ritual in Guanajuato--a kind of character endurance test--that comes each May and lasts until the end of September. It is a ritual that has been occurring since, well, the beginning of everything. It is, "La Temporada de la Lluvia." This translates to: The Rainy Season.

Mexico - Butt Mountain
[Travel-and-Leisure:Destination-Tips] Have you ever wondered how places get their names? I have. I remember when we moved to the Kansas City area and learned of "Knob Knoster", Missouri. I mean, really! How on earth did that name come to pass?

Mexico - The Only True Stereotype
[Travel-and-Leisure:Destination-Tips] Have you ever wondered how stereotypes get started and which ones are true? Stereotypes about Mexico abound with most being silly to stupid. However, if I had to point to just one that was 100% totally and absolutely accurate, it would be that everything you have ever heard about The Mexican Mail Service is true!

Mexico - Taking a Bath
[Travel-and-Leisure:Destination-Tips] I have a tantalizingly exciting topic to discuss--The Art of Mexican Bathing. Now, if you think this topic is as exciting as watching paint dry, you had better withhold judgment until you expatriate to Mexico and try this out for yourself. You will be glad you did.

Mexico - Man's Best Friend
[Travel-and-Leisure:Destination-Tips] I just love dogs. I love all breeds of dogs and even those of the Heinz 57 variety. I grew up with Doberman Pinchers that my father bred and trained as a hobby. All I know about dogs I learned from watching my Dad work with them.

Mexico - A Retirement Paradise!
[Travel-and-Leisure] During a conversation I had with a Gringo couple in the delightfully charming little park called Embajadoras in Guanajuato, Mexico, I asked if they knew there were no Disclosure Laws in Mexico when buying real estate. They were duly shocked.

The First Step In Your Expatriation Adventure
[Legal:Immigration] The very first thing you should consider once you've made your mind up as to where you are going to live overseas might surprise you. The many letters we receive from potential expats always begin with the theme of cost of living. While important, most who contact us in our adopted home of Guanajuato, Mexico, never get past this economic issue.

A Lightbulb Moment on Moving to Mexico
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] I've made a discovery. It's taken a while to arrive at the point where I think I am beginning to understand something. Call me dense.

San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, and Straw Men
[Travel-and-Leisure] When I shared with an academic friend that I was going to push this gig of writing about expatriation and the Gringolandias in Mexico, her response was that I had a tough job ahead of me. If I knew then of the profundity of her comment I wonder if I would have stayed on the fiction-writing track instead. That is, as they say, water under the bridge, and here I am, yet again, writing about Expat Issues.

Live and Let Live - When is This Not a Virtue?
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] When does "Tolerance" or "Live and Let Live" stop becoming a virtue? Is it even a virtue? If it is, is it virtuous to apply this attitude universally and without exception in every circumstance of life? Some people think this is so. They govern their lives and relationships with the idea that "if someone doesn't criticize me, then what right do I have to criticize them?"

Spanishing in Guanajuato
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] I've been in Spanish classes for the past two weeks. It's been great. As a non-native Spanish speaker, it is important to refresh your Spanish by having a professional correct your mistakes.

Watching Cartoons in Spanish Can Equal Fluency
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] I've enjoyed my return to Spanish class here in Guanajuato immensely. It's been a little strange because basically one ends up taking classes mainly with other Americans with a few other nationalities thrown in for good measure. I haven't been around my fellow Americans in so long that it's taken a bit of getting used to. In the last five years, I have actually forgotten social cues and topics of conversation within polite company. But, it's been fun, informative, and actually a confidence booster.

Living In Mexico - Where Did That Bus Driver Go?
[Travel-and-Leisure] Gringolandians, those living in Gringo enclaves, live such isolated and bizarrely separate lives from the Mexicans in the same town that they have on more than one occasion called me an absolute liar for the things I've reported happening in the Mexican city where I live. One thing with which they take particular exception is what I've written about buses. I've reported the incidents in which I've been hit by buses as the result of being shoved off the dangerously narrow sidewalks in the city of Guanajuato.

Living In Mexico - Everyone Loves The Theater
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] If you haven't been following my articles plastered all over the Internet, what I've been writing about with much alacrity is how life for the American expat in Mexico basically falls into two classifications. First, there are the Expats who actually live in the trenches. We live in Mexican neighborhoods and that's because we bothered to try to become bilingual.

Want to Retire or Work in Mexico? You'd Better Read This!
[Travel-and-Leisure] Let me shoot straight from the hip. No fancy introductions to this article, no witty sayings, no clever expressions, no wildly used adjectives. Just plain talk about what you will find if you are planning your retirement in Mexico or if you are coming here to work.

Homeless Mexican Dogs and Cats in Trouble - Can You Help?
[Pets] I heard a whining. Almost a whimper, it seemed. Whatever it was, I decided at this point it was not only a soft whimper but it also sounded impatient. I began hearing small "woofs." I went to the window of our Mexican street-level casita to check this out.

Want To Succeed at Writing? You Need a Platform!
[Writing-and-Speaking:Writing] When I finished my book, "The Plain Truth about Living in Mexico," I sent queries to a number of publishers. On a lark, I queried McGraw-Hill. To my utter shock and awe, they wanted to look at the completed manuscript. The editor who read the manuscript wrote back and said that he wanted to take it to the final committee for possible publication.

The Mixing of Architectural Styles in Mexican Churches
[Travel-and-Leisure] Some of the many things that can bore me nearly to death, or at the very least put me into a slumber coma, are soap operas, American baseball, American football, most sitcoms, anything having to do with Microsoft and Bill Gates, and listening to George Bush speak. The one thing in the world that never puts me to sleep is the subject of Mexican churches.

Puffy Wet Lips
[Arts-and-Entertainment:Humor] Mr. McGoo lives across the street from us! There's this guy who lives across the street from us who we have renamed Wet Lips.

I Was Just in The Middle of a Dream
[Arts-and-Entertainment:Humor] I was dreaming. I was eating Carnitas. They were very good Carnitas. The waitress was about to bring me another heaping plate of deliciously fatty, artery-clogging Carnitas when I heard tom-toms.

Living In MEXICO With The Hand
[Travel-and-Leisure] One of the most endearing things in Mexican culture that you will never see unless you have a house that sits on the street is how many Mexicans still get your attention when they come to your house. Be it a stranger or someone well known, unless you live in a house in central Mexico with gated walls, tall fences, pit bulls staked in your yard, you will get to experience a traditional way in which Mexicans come calling at your home.

Don't Declare War - OPINE!
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] It is very interesting to note how someone responds to what I've written about Gringolandia and its inhabitants, Gringolandians. Almost without exception, the usual screed in response to what I've always proclaimed as just "my thoughts, my opinions, my editorializing on my life in central Mexico" come in the form of personal attacks on me, the author.

Guanajuato - Too Many False Expectations
[Travel-and-Leisure] A friend of mine told me about a conversation she had with a person she knows in one of the Mexican Prime Living Locations on the west coast of Mexico. This area, one to which many Americans flock, had become too expensive for her to continue living there. When my friend asked her where she might want to move, Guanajuato was her first choice.

Living in Mexico - Is Gringolandia An Offensive Term?
[Travel-and-Leisure] From my rantings and ravings about the unnecessary formations of Gringolandias in the Mexican Prime Living Locations to which future Gringolandians are attracted, I got a comment from a reader who asked me not to use the word, "Gringolandians." This reader, who was not the only one actually, believed I was using this term in application to him as an individual. A lady from San Miguel de Allende, the Gringolandia Capital of the Mexican Highlands, also wrote one of those "How dare you imply I don't speak Spanish" comments.

Why Do Americans Threaten Each Other For Their Opinions?
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] The Oakland Post editor, Chauncey Bailey, was gunned down on the streets of Oakland, California, on August 2, 2007, in an attack that targeted him because of his work as a writer.

The Gringolandizing of Mexico
[Travel-and-Leisure] The literature that exists in book form and especially in online newsletters and magazines presents to the "Move-To-Mexico Wannebee" Mexico as an Image and not Mexico as it Really Is. I found an excellent example of this in an email featuring a popular living-in-Mexico magazine that appeals to the potential expat to Mexico. And, let me emphasize the point is to attract potential expats to Mexico who have lots and lots of money to invest in real estate.

Living in Mexico - Gringolandia Denial
[Travel-and-Leisure] I cannot begin to imagine what life must be like in isolated little enclaves where the inhabitants have only one another for socializing. In areas like Guanajuato that still have such few Gringolandians, the "Social Incest" (as the southeast Asian locals used to say the Americans there committed) must be incredibly horrid. At least in San Miguel de Allende there are enough Gringos (about 12,000) so one can avoid some and commune with others.

Learning Spanish - Financing Your Spanish Education
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] A couple of years ago, an American lady came to Guanajuato to learn Spanish. She enrolled in one of the most expensive schools in town.

Learning Spanish - The Affective Factor
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] The chief problem for most Americans who want to learn Spanish but who don't succeed is the Affective Factor. Plainly put, this means the emotional issues; that is, adults become freaked out at the thought. The fear of getting put on the spot and embarrassed is just too much to bear.

Living in Mexico - Fight Well, Love Better
[Travel-and-Leisure] Though a conservative, I read liberal points of view. I do so for two reasons. One, their views help me refine my own.

Learning Spanish - Begin By Listening - Part 6
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] Most folks, when they set out to study a new language, begin by enrolling in Spanish I at their local Junior College. This is not the way to begin. In fact, the formal learning about the language in a course at the JuCo is about 5 years away from where you are at if you've had no experience at acquiring the target language.

Learning Spanish - Begin By Listening - Part 5
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] To maximize our brain's ability to store visual and auditory impressions in the target language, we must constantly, each day, create an atmosphere in which we are hearing and seeing the language we seek to acquire in an immersion situation. This is not only possible to do in a country in which the target language is not spoken but is being accomplished all the time.

How To Conquer Central Mexico in Your Next Vacation
[Travel-and-Leisure] I've noticed lately the tourists that make their way to central Mexico (Guanajuato) tend to be either the loosey-goosey backpackers or the tourist elite who tend to have a lot of experience in coming to strange and new places. The backpackers (and there's nothing wrong with loosey-goosey, I would like to add) seem to be a highly adaptable group that can, more or less, stay almost anywhere, under most conditions, and more easily go with the flow, no matter what the flow throws their way. The tourist elite group has the money to stay.

Learning Spanish - Begin By Listening - Part 4
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] Exactly how the brain stores language, spoken and understood speech, has not exactly been known. Recently, however, there have been more clues to what goes on in the brain when spoken fluency in the primary and secondary language is acquired. Our brains, when exposed to hundreds of thousands of repetitions in the target language (First, second, third, etc.).

Terrorism - A Different Application
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] I've been wondering lately about the word "terrorism" and its various definitions. It is certainly an appropriate inquiry considering today's world environment. What does it mean and how is the word applied?

Learning Spanish - Begin By Listening - Part 3
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] The way in which adult Africans, and I believe many of the adults I've met in the resort areas of Mexico, have developed a high degree of spoken fluency is the same way in which we learned our native tongue as children-Passive Listening. If ever there was a "natural way" to learn a second language, this is it. If ever there was a way that one should use as the primary step to second language acquisition, this is it.

Learning Spanish - Begin By Listening - Part 2
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] The place most worth considering where instruction in how to learn a second language abounds just might surprise you. Africa is the place where more people are multilingual than anywhere else in the world. Thousands of her people speak multiple dialects, different languages in which they conduct all manner of business, multiple native tribal languages, and colonial languages.

Living in Mexico - Confessions of An Insane Gringo
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] Let me first say that whether or not I am actually insane could be debated. However, my personal pendulum tends to swing toward the yes column. So, there you go, my first confession.

Learning Spanish - Begin By Listening - Part 1
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] I remain convinced the primary reason why so many Americans are attracted to Mexico is in the Gringolandias, or Gringo Expat Enclaves, they will never be faced with what seems to be the overwhelming task of learning Spanish. The British, I am told, do the same thing in the south of France. An intricate and well-organized expat infrastructure awaits the would-be retiree and alleviates the fear of having to master the language.

How Do I Become Fluent in a New Language?
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] Language is like any other skill or aptitude - some people are proficient in languages, while others are better at math, science, or music. Everyone has the potential to learn, but the fact is that some people are just more capable of learning language than others.

Learning Spanish - The Input Hypothesis
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] Maybe the most important aspect of Stephen Krashen's theories of second language acquisition is The Input Hypothesis. This explains how someone learns a second language. The hypothesis deals with acquisition of speech and not the learning of formal grammatical rules and cold memorization of vocabulary words.

Learning Spanish Has Never Been Easier
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] Mnemonic memory training is a memory system that allows you to store information in and recall it from your long-term memory, and, in the case of learning a new language, your speech center. Mnemonics gives you a way to organize information, store it, and recall it. The better information is organized and stored, the easier you will be able to recall it when it is needed and the longer it will stay in your head.

Learning Spanish - A New Resource
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] A host of commercially available Foreign Language home study products employ The Comprehension Approach to teach a level of proficiency in the target language. The Comprehension Approach allows for that "period of silence" that all of us went through when learning our native language as children. This is the time period when we learn functional vocabulary and core grammar.

Living In Mexico - Gringos Underestimate The Noise Factor
[Travel-and-Leisure] My wife and I met with a woman a few years ago when she was contemplating moving to Guanajuato. She asked me what I thought Americans grossly underestimated in their plotting to move to Guanajuato.

Learning Spanish - The Natural Order Hypothesis
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] In second language acquisition research conducted in 1974-75, 1980 and 1987, it was postulated that the acquisition of grammatical forms followed a natural and predictable order. How this happens is contingent upon multiple factors. The learner's age and the learner's circumstances seemed not to be a significant influence on this natural order.

Learning Spanish Part Twenty Four - The Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] Dr. Stephen Krashen's foundational principle in his theory of Second Language Acquisition is called "The Acquisition-Learning hypothesis." In this idea, a distinction is made in that wonderfully exciting and gaiety-galore world of linguistics and language pedagogy between learning a language and acquiring it.

Learning Spanish Part Twenty-Three - Language Learning Versus Language Acquisition
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] In the field of second language acquisition, Stephen Krashen, Ph.D, is a name that rises above the academic din that usually begins when the subject of Language Acquisition versus Language Learning is brought up. The noise becomes even more deafening when someone, such as myself, would dare to report how the theories of Dr. Krashen have affected his personal adventure in trying to achieve the highest possible degree of spoken fluency.

Learning Spanish Part Twenty Five - The Monitor Hypothesis
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] Dr. Krashen explains that this idea, The Monitor Hypothesis, shows how language learning (grammar) affects language acquisition. This is, according to Krashen, the useful outcome of learning grammar.

Learning Spanish Part Twenty One - Why Talk About Methods?
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] My purpose in this series (which I failed to make clear, apparently, from the beginning) has been to do two things. One is to show the progression of second language acquisition instruction in its historical development through 350-word articles. The second is see who is still using these methods, if any are using them at all.

Learning Spanish Part Twenty-Two - Suggestopedia
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] Georgi Lozanov, a Bulgarian psychologist, introduced what he undoubtedly thought an original and brilliant premise: "... students naturally set up psychological barriers to learning - based on fears that they will be unable to perform and are limited in terms of their ability to learn." Anyone who has ever taught American Junior High school could have told him that.

Living In Mexico - Closer To God
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] The tragic event in Eloxochitlan, Mexico, in which a mudslide took too many bus traveler's lives on July 5th, 2007, reminded me of the times I've been in Mexican cabs and buses when traveling on back roads that twist and wind up and down rain-soaked mountains. At the writing of this article, 32 bodies have been recovered from a muddy tomb. Rescuers fear more to come.

Learning Spanish - Intercambios
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] What got me started on an Intercambio jag was learning how Mexicans in the tourist industry on Mexico's Gold Coast learn English and achieve an amazing level of proficiency. They do it by engaging in Intercambios! This is where you exchange an hour of helping a Mexican struggling to learn English with an hour of him helping you with your Spanish.

Living in Mexico - What Mexicans Think About Gringos
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] When I was setting up an interview with a Mexican friend, he asked what I wanted to discuss. When I told him I wanted to ask him what Mexicans tend to think most often about Gringos, he had an immediate reaction. He said he thought Americans come to Mexico expecting it to be just like America.

Learning Spanish Part Twenty - The Silent Way Method
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] A most bizarre philosophy of education called "Discovery Learning," based partly on the educational ideas of Rousseau, Pestalozzi and Dewey, led to The Silent Way Method of Second Language acquisition. It also enjoyed the support of psycho-babblists (psychologists) Piaget, Bruner, and Papert. Seymour Papert said, "You can't teach people everything they need to know.

Living In Mexico - Sugar and Spice and This Time Nice Part 1
[Travel-and-Leisure] Living in a Mexican town that is probably the most provincial in the entire country can have many advantages. One such is that this town is really mired in its "group-oriented" mentality. What this means is that rather than the "I am Mexican; hear me roar" mentality so pervasive in America, it is "We are Mexican; hear Us roar.

Living in Mexico - Rainy Season and Puppy Dumping Season
[Travel-and-Leisure] The only time one can really say that the often cited "near perfect weather" in Guanajuato takes on a sour disposition is during the late spring and summer. That's when the infamous Rainy Season descends on the inhabitants of Guanajuato and sends locals and expatriates alike running for cover and looking for sinus relief potions and tablets. Though it turns this mountain desert city into a little emerald jewel for a few months, it also has drawbacks that are hard to observe, difficult to discuss, and a bit heartbreaking.

Learning Spanish Part Nineteen - The Audiolingual Method
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] This method of second language instruction was a further development or evolution of The Direct Method. World War II rose up and slapped the U.S. government in its linguistically challenged face, waking it to the need and definite lack of language competency to deal with the other nations of the world. Apparently, the U.S. continues to find itself in this position with International conflicts. The lesson has to be relearned over and over again that bilingual fluency is crucial for Americans. Without it, other nations, some of which are our enemies, have the distinct advantage.

Learning Spanish Part Eighteen - The Direct Method of Language Instruction
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] Realizing that The Grammar Translation Method of second language instruction did not work to impart spoken proficiency in the target language, in the late 1800's, The Direct Method surfaced in language instruction. The need for a system that worked to teach spoken competence is what drove those to create The Direct Method. What it entailed was methods of language acquisition that were more closely related to how first (native) languages were acquired.

Learning Spanish Part Seventeen - The Translation Method of Language Instruction
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] The grammar translation method of second language acquisition is virtually the only method used in most language courses taught in classrooms all over the world. It is also known as The Classical Method.

Learning Spanish Part Fifteen - Memory Part III
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] Think about this for a moment. If you cannot successfully filter out the distracting information, you cannot get at the information that you are trying to bring up from your memory - the information you do want to recall. It is not that you cannot remember something; it is, rather, that you cannot block or filter the extraneous information that is preventing you from remembering what you want to remember.

Learning Spanish Part Fourteen - Memory Part II
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] What exactly is happening when we grow old and begin to suffer those "Senior Moments" seems to be a deficit in two issues of memory functioning: 1) a slowing of the ability to use that area of the brain best suited for memory processing, and 2) what seems a refusal to use memory techniques and training appropriate for reversing memory losses in those areas of the brain we used to use when we were younger. When we were younger and had a memory task to accomplish, our brains would select almost instantly the preferred region of the brain for memory processing. As we grow older and begin to suffer memory deficits, our brains are NOT using the preferred regions for memory processing but other regions not as effective for memory processing.

Learning Spanish Part Thirteen - Memory Part I
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] The truth is that as we age, some memory "deficits" begin to occur. The good news is these deficits are not necessarily set in stone nor are they irreversible. Though we cannot escape the often-inevitable loss of some cognitive functioning, like aging issues with memory, new research is showing that some age-related memory problems can be reversed with proper memory training.

Learning Spanish Part Twelve - Total Immersion Courses in Mexico
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] Going to the host country of the target language has always taken on a sort of mythical quality. It has been believed that you could not learn a foreign language unless you went to the country associated with the target language and engaged in something called Total Immersion.

Learning Spanish Part Eleven - Taking Classes in Spanish
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] If you have successfully completed at least The Learnables and The Pimsleur Spanish, Learning Spanish Like Crazy courses, you are ready for the formal study of Spanish (i.e., grammar). I know this is very costly. I know because I've paid the price myself for these courses.

Learning Spanish Part Nine - Still Looking for That Horse?
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] What do we know so far? We found the best approach to language learning is to learn Spanish the very same way you learned your native tongue. Lots and lots of intensive listening without speaking comes first. This is how you learned your native language. This is how children instinctively approach learning a second language.

Learning Spanish Part Eight - Some Really Bad Science!
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] So just where did this hideous stereotype about adults learning foreign language originate? It came from some very old science.

Learning Spanish Part Seven - How to Begin
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] The Horse, as I wrote previously, is spoken fluency. I made the point that long before they go off to first grade, children already have a high degree of spoken fluency in their native tongue before they learn the parts of speech or memorize grammar rules.

Learning Spanish Part Six - More On Conversation Classes
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] Think about this very seriously for a moment. If you have children, just think what degree of spoken fluency your child had when you first packed him off to first grade. Think of all he could understand and say before he ever started his formal education.

Learning Spanish Part Five - Conversation Classes
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] Yes, there are conversation classes (sometimes) offered in this sequence of courses. They are supposed to be the "speaking" component of what is called, The Total Immersion Experience. But there are grave problems with even these conversation classes that we will cover later.

Learning Spanish Part Four - The Right Approach
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] This article is about language learning methods. I know what you are thinking, "Why isn't he talking about motivation first?" The reason I am starting with methodology first is that the wrong method of learning a second language is often the biggest deterrent of motivation.

Learning Spanish Part Three - Why Acquire a Second Language?
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] Why should an American learn a foreign language in the 21st century? What and where is the need? If we are not connected in close proximity to our International Neighbors, as are Europeans, then why should Americans learn another language? Why should Americans learn Spanish?

Learning Spanish Part Two - Some Solutions
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] Foreign language learning is not something that happens overnight; it takes a commitment of time and money. U.S. schools compound the problem by waiting too long to start foreign language instruction.

Learning Spanish Part One - The Problems and Solutions
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] It is not an exaggeration to declare that the United States of America could be the only country in the world where one can graduate from high school and even college without taking one course of foreign language study. Of those few schools which still require their students to take a foreign language to graduate, the one or two years of foreign language study is woefully inadequate for developing a high degree of spoken fluency. As America crossed into the 21st century, a bilingual rate of less than 9% prevailed.

Learning Spanish Part Sixteen - This Time Do It Right
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] I've been thinking about this lady in San Miguel de Allende. I don't know her well. I've never met her, actually, but we have corresponded.

Mexico As a Concept and Not a Reality - Part 2
[Travel-and-Leisure] It has been the Prime Living Locations such as the Lake Chapala area, Puerto Vallarta, San Miguel de Allende, Cuernavaca, Mazatlán, and others to which Gringos have been attracted. Because they came in droves and droves, the Mexicans in these cities had to adapt to serve the Gringos. Thus something different, something that had never before existed, arose.

Mexico As a Concept and Not As a Reality Part 1
[Travel-and-Leisure] Most, if not all, Americans who decide to move to Mexico to "get away from it all" seem to do so based on the merits of at least two books, a handful of websites, some seminars (in the Guadalajara area), and a host of chat rooms and forums whose themes are how wonderfully cheap, relaxing, easy, and convenient it will be living in Mexico. These sources also paint a picture of the Mexican people that is, for lack of better words, a picturesque, pastoral heaven-on-earth population of saints who have been sitting around all their lives just waiting for the ...

Living in Mexico - Don't Mess With Mexican Women Part II
[Travel-and-Leisure] The point is simple. If how you judge fluency in a second language is having the ability to speak with 100% proficiency, like a native, then you do err.

Living in Mexico - Don't Mess with Mexican Women
[Travel-and-Leisure] I was standing outside the walk-in-closet-sized store where my wife loves to shop. It is also the neighborhood gossip center. Need I say more about why women love the place?

Living in Mexico - True Total Immersion Spanish
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] Almost without exception, the private language schools and universities in Mexico use the translation method of Spanish instruction. The translation method is a philosophy of second language instruction in which there is an intense concentration of the memorization of "surface" grammar rules and vast amounts of vocabulary. You learn how to become a good "exegete" of a written text but have no skills in verbal fluency.

Study Abroad in Mexico - Four Steps Maximizing Your Mexico Study Trip
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] If you are planning what seems to be the "in thing" with more and more middle-class Americans, a Spanish study vacation in Mexico, there are some things you can do to maximize the experience. To do so will not only help you learn Spanish, but will also help you to have fun and to spend your money wisely. It is not cheap.

Living in Mexico - Random Thoughts and Rambling Observations
[Travel-and-Leisure] It is always a treat to receive letters from readers who read what I crank out. I never expect agreement with that which I put into the public eye.

Living in Mexico - Transacting Anything in this Country
[Travel-and-Leisure] Recently, I read a book written by a Cultural Analyst specializing in Mexican culture. I was impressed when he made the point that though you might have the highest degree of spoken fluency in Spanish and have excellent cultural fluency, when "push comes to shove," maybe having a Mexican partner, mentor, or advisor to accompany you would be best. What I think he meant was when you want to transact anything under the sun in Mexico, having a Mexican at your side would get things done a lot faster, more smoothly, and as hitch-free as possible.

Living in Mexico - Sugar and Spice But Not Always Nice Part 5
[Travel-and-Leisure] There is a great restaurant in town where I love to eat steak. It is cheap, though they don't offer the best cuts of meat. However, the steak is tender, comes with a load of sides, and is cooked perfectly for my tastes.

Living in Mexico - Sugar and Spice But Not Always Nice Part 4
[Travel-and-Leisure] You and your business partner have been working your tails off trying to get a bunch of modern, Mexican-style duplexes off the ground. You've poured too much money to think about into hiring Mexican workers to build this duplex complex. You all have not only hired locals to do all the work, tolerating the cultural problems when Gringos and Mexicans work together, but in the end you will have an upscale duplex to offer as modern housing to the Mexican people.

Living in Mexico - Sugar and Spice But Not Always Nice Part 3
[Travel-and-Leisure] To be honest with you, I don't see why more Gringos in Guanajuato aren't getting ripped off when trying to rent, or God forbid, buy a house on their own. It never occurred to us to move here without as much Spanish under our belts as possible. We had a high degree of fluency BEFORE coming.

Living in Mexico - Sugar and Spice But Not Always Nice Part 2
[Travel-and-Leisure] The simple answer is if you are a Gringo, Mexicans perceive you as having riches galore. You won't miss any of all that money you have just sitting around and getting in your way. Do the well heeled and better educated Mexicans think that?

Living in Mexico - Sugar and Spice But Not Always Nice Part 1
[Travel-and-Leisure] I wish someone had written a more reality-based expatriation guide we could have read during our research phase before moving to Mexico. The fine books that do exist, that everyone seems to have read, give you a rosy picture of what life is like in Mexico for the American. For those who are thinking about moving to Mexico to spend their retirement years, you will be given the impression that living in Mexico is akin to moving into heaven, or at least into Never-Never-Land.

Living in Mexico - Cultural Ineptitude
[Travel-and-Leisure] During a recent conversation with an American Gringa, I made the point that since she doesn't speak Spanish, how can she know if she is accepted in the Mexican community. The woman didn't speak enough Spanish to even survive and yet she claimed all her friends are Mexicans and she is accepted by all of them. How does she know this?

Living in Mexico- Guanajuato Sidewalk Safety
[Travel-and-Leisure] Try imagining a giant banana split bowl big enough to build a city inside. Imagine the bowl twisted into a crooked "S" shape. The next miracle is a city gets built along the winding and twisting bottom of the bowl and all up and down the sides.

Living in Mexico - Gringolandia Survival Tips
[Travel-and-Leisure] How to make gringo enemies and lose gringo friends is a subject one really must tackle with all due diligence when contemplating a move to Mexico. Whether you are expatriating to Mexico as a retiree, student, worker, or just to hang out for while, you really need these tips. If you follow these suggestions, you are guaranteed never to have any friends in the American Expat Community.

Living in Mexico - Not a Jeffersonian Democracy
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] Where did the Free Exchange, the Market Place of Ideas, go in America? It certainly is not here South of the Border!

Living in Mexico - Eating Schedules and Gringo Bellies
[Travel-and-Leisure] When the wife and I moved to Guanajuato, Mexico, one of our hardest adjustments was trying to get our intestines in tune with Mexico's eating schedule. We were surprised at how eating at the most bizarre times could be as upsetting to our little girlie-man gringo bellies as the Mexican food itself. We had to battle both the food and the schedule until we adjusted.

Living in Mexico - Guanajuato Hotels
[Travel-and-Leisure:Hotels-Accommodations] Most tourists who come to Guanajuato want to stay in the center of town in one of the many fine hotels. This is not just understandable but desirable.

Living in Mexico - Dealing With Those Water Bottles
[Food-and-Drink] The way the drinking water gig works in Mexico's Heartland is, number one, never drink from the tap. Secondly, always buy bottled water for cooking and drinking. You can buy five-gallon bottles in stores.

Living in Mexico - A Hedge Against Gringo Gouging
[Travel-and-Leisure] No amount of denial will make the dual-price system in Mexico go away. In Mexico's Heartland, you are liable to see this operational more so than in other places, but then again, not. Where this is particularly applicable is in the irrevocable habit Mexican landlords have of charging Americans and Canadians far more for rental properties than they do Mexicans.

Living in Mexico - Cultural Imperialism
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] In my never-ending quest to discover just what to call American gringos who move to Mexico and create Gringolandias (expats, fakepats, colonists?), I offer yet another confusing yet interesting dilemma. See what you think.

Living in Mexico - Speaking Spanish - The Child Factor
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] A surprising revelation you may not have thought of in your quest to develop fluency in a second language is that what you do NOT want to do, the road you don't want to go down, is the cold, mechanical, and frightfully boring attempt to memorize vocabulary. All of us who have tried learning a second language know all too well how it not only does not work in developing spoken fluency, but also is such a dreadful endeavor, is it not? I mean, how many of your high school Spanish vocabulary words do you still remember?

Living in Mexico - Learning Spanish - Wrong Approaches
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] The chief problem we Americans have with developing a high degree of spoken fluency is that we take the wrong first steps in acquiring a second language. It's not our faults, really.

Living in Mexico - Speaking Spanish - The Fear Factor
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] When researching for my articles and eventual book on second language acquisition, I learned that the fear factor is probably the greatest issue for adults in developing a high degree of spoken fluency in the chosen language. Children rarely suffer this since they are so highly motivated to play with their little pals even though those little pals are speaking something funny. They want to be able to communicate and it that "wanting" that drives the fear away or it never occurs to children to be afraid in the first place.

Living in Mexico - Two Prices for Everything
[Travel-and-Leisure] Readers love to write to contradict my too-often made point of American prices versus Mexican prices in Mexico. They will disagree with me by saying, "Well, I've never seen any indication of a dual price gouging therefore it can't exist." Lovely bit of logic, don't you agree?

Living in Mexico - Dog, Pollution, Cops
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] Depending on where an American chooses to expatriate in Mexico, there is one irrevocable fact of Mexican life and culture that will be immediately apparent. Mexicans have a different attitude toward their dogs than Americans have.

You've Got To Make Generalizations When it Comes to Culture
[Travel-and-Leisure] Whenever the endeavor to discuss culture is undertaken, one has to engage in generalizations. If I said, for example, because of the machismo factor, the masculine cult, in Mexico, Mexican men won't cry when they are upset, it would most certainly be a generalization.

Why Do Gringos Move to Mexico?
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] "Actually, I don't see many examples on this list of people looking to move to Mexico to live extravagant lives, but rather of people who like Mexico (or other Latin American nations) and also want to have a pleasant and comfortable life. Quite a few are trying to find a way to survive on minimal pensions - is it so terrible we would like to make themselves as comfortable as we can? The fact is many, probably most, Mexicans also would like air conditioning, cable TV, access to the Internet, etc. Why does it become a crime for US retirees to want the same?"

Dealing With Culture When Moving to Mexico
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] "...A majority of the Britons described Americans as uncaring, divided by class, awash in violent crime, vulgar, preoccupied with money, ignorant of the outside world, racially divided, uncultured and in the most overwhelming result (90 percent of respondents) dominated by big business."

Am I too Old to Learn a Second Language?
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] Actually, there is no credible evidence to show that the older one becomes the more difficult it is to learn a foreign language. This belief is almost an urban myth and is not linguistically sound.

My Most Recent Brush With Death
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] What do you do when there's a car on fire right outside your bedroom? You run as if your life depended on while screaming your head off.

Fibromyalgia Saved My Neighbor's Lives
[News-and-Society] Those who suffer from Fibromyalgia would probably never in a million years say what I am about to utter. I am thankful to God for being afflicted with Fibromyalgia because the sleep disorder caused by my Fibro saved my life, my wife's life, and the Mexican neighborhood in which we live in Guanajuato.

La Mordida of Mexico - What to Do and How To Handle It
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] You can find some of the world's worst advice in Internet Chat Rooms. If you are planning a trip to Mexico, maybe even planning on living there as an expatriate, you can go on chat rooms all over the net and find some of the most rousing discussions. Sometimes you will find advice that you do not want to follow in a million years when it comes to Mexico and paying the La Mordida.

How To Become Mexicanized
[Travel-and-Leisure] Is it fair, no, not fair but ethical, to demand of immigrants to America that which we, as Americans, would not demand of ourselves when and if we were to immigrate to another country? Are we being "Double Minded Gringos" to demand certain things, if you will-requirements, of Mexicans for example, when they attempt to move to our country that we wouldn't dare demand of ourselves? Just what does it mean for an immigrant to the United States to become "Americanized?

Mexico - What's Wrong With Us?
[Travel-and-Leisure] I was sitting in the bus station in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico. My wife and I had just completed a four-day fact finding mission. We had been there to see for ourselves, to take careful notes of what we observed and to find out if what we had been told by fellow expats in the Mexican city in which we live, was true.

Understanding Mexican Culture - Part 4
[Travel-and-Leisure] In chapter 25, I asked the question: Why would someone from Chihuahua City speak so disdainfully about the people of Guanajuato? Actually, from our trip through Mexico in the Spring of 2007, I could be asking that question of several of the cities and states we visited and of the people we talked to in those places. I recall one conversation with a cab driver in San Luis Potosi who called Guanajuato, and this is hard to say, the dirtiest place his family had ever visited.

Mexican & Americans - Cracking The Cultural Code
[Travel-and-Leisure] Something that I have to be careful of when I write about my experience as an American expat in Mexico is not to come across in my prose as an expat expert. I think I tend to do this, but be assured, it is unintentional.

Understanding Mexican Culture - Part 3
[Travel-and-Leisure] After we had lived in Guanajuato for about two years, we noticed something so strange, so unnerving, so inexplicable that it took another two years before we arrived at a reasonable explanation for a mystery that, frankly, was a little mind-boggling. This apparently is a no-brainer for some of my readers. They've written to me and expressed, how I shall I put this, their "consternation" that I would even "waste their time" in mentioning it.

Central Mexico Real Estate - Buying Property Warnings
[Travel-and-Leisure] I am getting more and more readers sending me emails asking for references of real estate agents in the area of Mexico in which my wife and I live. I never give any out because buying real estate in this area of Mexico is fraught with dangers for the Gringo.

Understanding Mexican Culture - Part 2
[Travel-and-Leisure] We were understandably excited, even overwhelmed, when we moved to Guanajuato on August 1, 2003. We explored the city until we felt we would drop. We ate at all the cool restaurants until we thought we'd go broke. Finally, when we settled down, we set about living our lives like ordinary Guanajuatenses. We shopped where Mexicans shopped and we lived where Mexicans lived.

Part Two - Man-Boobs in Guanajuato, Mexico
[Travel-and-Leisure] The last I shared about answering the door at an ungodly hour (any hour between 2:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. in Mexico comes under the designation ungodly), dressed like I had just come from under a bridge, I explained that three, count them - three, people thrust into my just-awakened- from-the-dead trembling hands their resumes thinking I was the guy for whom they wanted to work in the insurance business.

Guanajuato, Mexico - There Goes My Principles
[Travel-and-Leisure] It is so hot here in Guanajuato, Mexico; I was having serious doubts whether we would survive the blazing and unrelenting heat frying our very brain cells. Houses here have no air conditioning. We are at an elevation of 6700 feet (supposed to be cool) and yet even that wasn't enough to prevent us from feeling certain death creeping at us from the inferno.

A Suicide Bombing Coming to a Neighborhood Mall Near You
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] Since 9/11, I have resisted writing very much about the issue of terrorism. One of the main reasons for my reluctance has been the very salient fact that I can hardly muster enough rational objectivism to do so. I feared, as I fear now, that I would not be able to say anything other than,

NASA, Real Estate, Flying and Death
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] Recently I read a story about NASA having to come up some sort of procedure for the possibility of astronauts dying while on their way to Mars. I suppose as ghoulish as this sounds, it is a real concern to have some kind of plan in place in the event that some quantum string of super-duper cosmic radiation comes shooting through the hull of the spacecraft and fries someone into something unrecognizable...all because someone forgot to invent force fields like the ones on Star Trek.

Cow Farts, Not Cars, Cause Global Warming!
[News-and-Society:Environmental] "And some time ago we told you that lawmakers in Europe were concerned that natural emissions from livestock are more harmful to the planet than pollutants from planes, trains, and automobiles. Now the London Sun reports an official European Union declaration is demanding changes to the diets of cows and sheep - and ways to capture their gas emissions and recycle manure.

When It Rained Lizards in Guanajuato
[Travel-and-Leisure] It's almost rainy season here in Guanajuato. You know it's coming when the days start heating up. The hottest days of the year are in April and May.

Mexico - No Matter How Hard I Try
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] No matter how hard I try, and I've been trying, trust me, I cannot stop thinking about expat issues in the Mexican town in which I live. I think the reason is that no matter how much I think I am going to stop writing about expatriation, I get confronted with expat issues almost every time I walk out the front door. It's constantly in my face.

Mexico - Expat Survey 2007
[Travel-and-Leisure] Let's pretend that you are going to move to Mexico. For whatever reason: retirement, school, work, or you are just plain tired of your country and want something new, you are going to move to Mexico and become an expatriate. Let's also pretend that you are going to move to Mexico's heartland, the central part of the country, where not a whole lot of literature is available about what you could expect once you arrived.

Alex Baldwin Doesn't Get It
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] Alex Baldwin's tirade against his minor child needs to be seen for what it is-child abuse. Not only is it child abuse but is also so typical of the mindset and the philosophy that Americans so easily resort to when it comes to taking responsibility for their actions. "It's not my fault."

Mexico - Drawn to Cleaner Cities
[Travel-and-Leisure] There is a certain magnetism to a Mexican city that seems to know how to keep its streets clean, its air clear-blue and free of the dreaded brown haze, and make everything in it call out to the tourist to come for a visit. I suppose this is what has driven me lately from my home in the city of Guanajuato, Mexico, to search for something I am lacking here. My time in Guanajuato, over the past four years, has been a learning experience.

Virginia Tech Killings - Don't Be Shocked
[News-and-Society:Crime] I am saddened but not shocked by what happened at Virginia Tech. You should not be shocked either. However, when something like this goes down in the USA, the "shock factor" is always paraded by the national news media and the too-often cry of, "He just snapped."

San Miguel de Allende, Charities, Questionable Motives?
[Travel-and-Leisure] Doesn't anyone realize that unless limitations are established on what Americans can do after they move to Mexico, they will change the cities to which they flock until Mexico is no longer Mexico, but is merely another USA? Many Americans in Mexico do not Expatriate, they Fakepatriate. (Notice I said many.

Mexico - You've Got The Wrong Number
[News-and-Society] This conversation took place at 2:30 a.m. one night in the not-too-distance past in my home in Guanajuato, Mexico. To save time I have translated it into English.

Guanajuato, Mexico - Want Fluff Or Do You Want Reality?
[Travel-and-Leisure] Most, if not all, of the "move to Mexico" and "how to expatriate to Mexico" books specifically target the traditional gringo colonies. They are memoir-type guides on "how I moved to _____." They deal with one or more of the regions that have well-organized gringo communities that act as safety buffers for the uninitiated and unsuspecting newbie.

What You Miss When You Don't Know Spanish
[Travel-and-Leisure] Occasionally, we go out to the campo (the Mexican countryside) to visit an artist friend. She is one of the most unique individuals I have ever met. The woman has the most interesting assemblage of stories and, frankly, I find her so entertaining.

All Good Things Must Come To An End
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] If you are an American or Canadian thinking about moving to Mexico, you will eventually have to confront the reality of what is really like to live here. What I mean is that all of the books, websites, and numerous online articles speak to only half of the story. They will tell you of all that's good and right in the expatriation adventure but will tell you none of the warts, none of the bumps in the road, none of what life will be like on a daily basis.

Mexico - Avoid Real Estate and Contractual Scams Part II
[Real-Estate] A Mexican landlord would rather die than ever return a deposit to a renter.

Mexico - Avoid Real Estate and Contractual Scams
[Real-Estate:Leasing-Renting] Not all Mexican Landlords, without exception, will do what I have outlined in this story. Some are actually very honest. There are blemishes, however, in the landscape of trying to find housing in Mexico and you need to know them before trying to rent in Mexico.

Idea Vendors Closed Out of The Market Place of Ideas
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] Every single person reading these words, whether they know it or not, is a Vendor of Ideas. Each of us possesses a host of ideas on many subjects. We like to call them opinions, points-of-view, or positions we take.

Are We Really Free?
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] During the birth pangs of America in Colonial times, the idea of freedom of speech was the definitive rallying cry of the soon-to-be Americans. However, I would suggest for your thinking that the hypocritical conditions under which the idea of the so-called freedom of speech was heralded still exist today. American wannebees back then did not care nor understand freedom of speech.

Why Men Need Women - We're Screw Ups!
[Relationships] Women. I simply cannot fathom why we men do not understand how much we need them in our lives.

Bill O'Reilly's Gaffe
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] This is a letter I wrote to Bill O'Reilly of FoxNews in response to his Wednesday, January 17, 2007, column, Anger Over the Kidnapping of Two Missouri Boys. [1] Dear Mr. Bill O'Reilly: Just because you believe the Stockholm Sydrome is rare does not mean you are correct in assuming it was not the dynamic in play with the Hornbeck child-- "child" being the operative word.

A Christmas Eve Nightmare
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] I had the most insane and unnerving Christmas Eve I've had in a long time. In fact, the last time I had a Christmas Eve evening like this was when I lived at home and had to outguess my alcoholic parents' unpredictably explosive behavior. Come to think of it, all of my holidays were spent trying to be a nice co-dependent child to my alcohol-abusing parents.

Immigration, Mexicans and How To Lie About It
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] Tell me if you've ever heard this: 1) Did you know that '95 percent of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens?' Or that '75 percent of people on the Most Wanted List in Los Angeles are illegal aliens?' What's more, 'Over [two-thirds] of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien Mexicans on [Medicaid] whose births were paid for by taxpayers.'[i]

Mexican Survival - Love, Belonging, Power, and Fun
[Travel-and-Leisure] William Glasser, M.D., of Reality Therapy fame, said this, "...I believe that we are genetically programmed to satisfy four psychological needs: love and belonging, power, freedom, and fun." If this is true, then you need to have a plan, a huge plan, for just how you are going to be able to meet these needs if you expatriate to Mexico.

Mexican Survival - Credit and ATM Cards
[Travel-and-Leisure] Something too few tourists will ask before coming to Guanajuato, Mexico, for a visit is, "Can I use my ATM and credit card for everything or anything?" I have seen many a display of the Ugly American Syndrome in many restaurants and shops over this very issue.

Mexican Survival - Other Gringos
[Travel-and-Leisure] You would not think that mentioning Other Gringos in an Expat Survival Guide would be necessary but after I am through you will write to thank me. It is necessary and we struggle with this on a daily basis.

Mexican Survival - Medical Care
[Travel-and-Leisure] When one American tells another American, always in hushed whispers and never in mixed company, "I am going to Mexico.", here is the usual response: Don't drink the water. Americans suffer from what has to border on pathological paranoia when the phrase, "I am going to Mexico" is heard.

Mexican Survival - Transportation
[Travel-and-Leisure] When my wife and I first visited the city in Mexico where we eventually chose to settle, we had a conversation along these lines: Me: "Do you know what I am thinking, my sweet darling dove?" Wife: "No, my hard hunk of a man. What are you thinking?

Mexican Survival - Communication
[Travel-and-Leisure] If you want to communicate from Mexico to anywhere else in the world, do not use the Postal Service. If it is not the worst in the world, it has to be in the top ten. I have harangued and harangued about this in countless columns and articles. The Mexican feds have yet to do something about it. Are they listening?

Mexican Survival - Do I Really Need Working Documents?
[Travel-and-Leisure] Though I have written a lot on the issue of expatriation to Mexico, one of the most common questions from the "younger crowd" is, "Can I find work?" This is, in a way, a pathetic commentary on life in America.

Mexican Survival - The Language Barrier
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] Let me begin this next column in the series with a generalized statement: The Spanish you learn in a classroom in the United States, Mexico, or in your own study from some impossibly expensive Spanish language tapes WILL NOT be the Spanish you hear in the streets of Mexico! I do not care who will try to convince you otherwise! I do not care who may convince you that this method or that method will give you fluency if only you would dish out the bucks to take it.

Mexican Survival - Water
[Travel-and-Leisure] A typical day in the life of an American expat living in Mexico will include trying to find drinking water. You might be surprised by this but everyone knows that you cannot "drink the water in Mexico."

Mexico - Creepy Dangerous Things
[Travel-and-Leisure] I am happy as a peacock to report that Mexico does not have much in the way of Creepy Dangerous Things that come out in the night to do you in while you sleep. There are, however, some things that can give one pause.

Want To Rent A House Or Buy A House In Guanajuato But Can't Speak Spanish?
[Travel-and-Leisure] In central Mexico, San Miguel de Allende is virtually the only place where you will find English spoken so massively that you will not have to learn how to say two words in this beautiful language. If the rest of central Mexico looks interesting then you are going to have to get bilingual and learn to speak Spanish.

Move Over San Miguel de Allende Here I Come - Part II
[Travel-and-Leisure] I thought I would write a follow-up to my column, "Move Over San Miguel de Allende Here I Come", since this is the only thing, writing, that prevents from committing murderous acts of rage (Just Joking!) As you recall from the previous column, I wrote how I tried to deposit a royalty check from my publisher and was told the check would clear on four different dates. We were shown, last week, on their computer screen that the funds would be available on the 18th of December.

Here I Am in the Middle of the Night - Once Again
[Health-and-Fitness] Here I am. It is middle of the night. I sit here, in the dark corner of the bedroom with just the light of the computer screen to illuminate the keyboard.

Western Civilization - We Are Doomed
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] Have you ever been in that mental state where you want to go back to bed, pull the covers over your head, because you have that overwhelming feeling that, "WE ARE DOOMED?" Just how do you know when the collective masses of Western Civilization have reached the point when the appellation, "WE ARE DOOMED" is applicable? Let me suggest a few ways of knowing: You know "WE ARE DOOMED" when: 1.

Did The Rabbi Get it Wrong?
[News-and-Society] The Associated Press headline reads: "Airport removes Christmas trees to avoid suit Rabbi had requested a giant Jewish menorah be added to holiday display." Once again, in a country touted as a "Christian Nation" where a majority of the people identify themselves as Christians and where tradition certainly attests to the veracity of this claim, an individual has forced the majority to bend to his will.

Public Opinion Controls America
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] In this age, in this country, public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed. Whoever molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes, or pronounces judicial decisions--Abraham Lincoln.

Guanajuato - The Land of Frogs
[Travel-and-Leisure] When theme parks, beaches, scuba diving, and whale watching have lost their charm after multiple vacations to Mexico, perhaps a visit to The Land of Frogs in Central Mexico is in order. The City of Guanajuato, which is called The Crown Jewel of Mexico's colonial cities, was named The Land of Frogs by a group of indigenous people. By some accounts, the indigenous took one look at the terrain and said, "Nothing but frogs could live here!

Guanajuato Living - The Way Life Really Is
[Travel-and-Leisure] I am miffed. I am sitting in my casita (little house) in Guanajuato moaning and groaning about something over which I have no possible control. I feel like swooning to the bed and uttering vile curses, but, as my wife often reminds me, "What good would that do?"

Living in Mexico - Car Ownership Nightmares
[Travel-and-Leisure] I got an email the other day from a reader who bawled me out for my complaining and whining ways. He pointed out that all I do is cry about everything. Well, I wasn't hurt or miffed because the truth is that is exactly what I do-cry about everything. It has become my trademark and who am I to mess with trademarks.

Do You Like Madonna's Music?
[Arts-and-Entertainment:Music] Madonna's music: I could care less about it. Madonna's stage and video acts: Nope! I do not like her music, although she is a talented singer and dancer. I loved her in Evita. But her popular stuff, I would never spend a dime on it.

Spotlight Fallacy and Crime in Mexico
[News-and-Society:Crime] In a column I wrote in August of 2005, titled, Kidnapping Americans in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, I said this about the American press and their coverage of the events then taking place in the border city: "The "Spotlight Fallacy" is simply this: "This line of reasoning is fallacious since the mere fact that someone or something attracts the most attention or coverage in the media does not mean that it automatically represents the whole population. For example, suppose a mass murderer from Old Town, Maine received a great deal of attention in the media..."

If Someone Asked Me How To Learn a New Language
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] If someone asked me what I would recommend as the most important preparation for expatriating to Mexico it would be, learn Spanish. You would think this is obvious, right?

Those Very Naughty Scamming-Spamming Nigerians
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Spam-Blocker] "Dear Friend, As you read this, I don't want you to feel sorry for me, because, I believe everyone will die someday. My name is MR Adada Muhammadu a Crude Oil merchant in Iran..."

You Can Learn a Language Naturally
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] In my newly released book, YOU CAN LEARN SPANISH or Any Language No Matter Your Age or Disposition, I discuss how most, if not all, second language courses in the Free World are taught: Grammar First. Not only is this method frighteningly boring, but I also explain why it will not-indeed cannot-give you what you want: A high degree of spoken fluency. I recall all too well walking into my first Spanish course at the University of Kansas.

Second Language Learning and Why Americans Can Do It
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] The other day I typed in "Language Schools" into Google and came up with a whopping 95 million hits. After popping my eyes back into my head, I wondered just how many public schools, junior colleges, and universities are offering second language learning opportunities in the United States. That must be an equally mind-boggling yet mysterious figure.

The Colonias or Barrios of Guanajuato
[Travel-and-Leisure] In the Colonias or Barrios of Guanajuato, gringos can be found in almost any of them. I am constantly asked how many gringos live in Guanajuato and the answer is, Quien Sabe? No one knows.

The Plain Truth About Living in Mexico
[Travel-and-Leisure] My wife and I are now beginning our fourth year as American expats in Guanajuato, Mexico. Sometimes it seems only yesterday that we sold all we owned in Overland Park, Kansas, and moved here with just suitcases, nothing more. Sometimes it seems like we never had a beginning but have always lived here.

Part III - San Miguel de Allende
[Travel-and-Leisure] After finishing the Part II article on San Miguel, I began racking my brain trying to come up with solutions rather than my usual polemics. I really believe that language insufficiency is a primary reason, if not the sole reason, why little English-only colonies or Mexican-Free Zones form when Americans expatriate to Mexico.

Living in Mexico - San Miguel de Allende
[Travel-and-Leisure] Americans living in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico either do not understand, do not want to understand, or are in simple denial regarding the effect they've had on this Central Mexican Colonial Town. I find their constant shock and surprise at the observations made by the rest of the world about the effect they have on the city too incredible to believe. They walk around with blinders on, do not want to see it, or do not want to admit it.

Engaging Friendships
[Relationships:Friendship] I've really only had two friends in my life. Now, before you deem this too pathetic for words, let me define terms.

Living in Mexico - The Effects of Tourism
[Travel-and-Leisure] Have you ever wondered if mass tourism actually spoils the very thing it comes to observe in a foreign country? I've been wondering this a lot lately.

Living in Mexico - Telephones
[Travel-and-Leisure] A basic service Americans have traditionally loved to hate and one about which they complain most vociferously is the telephone. Americans have scorned the phone company for years and yet few would think of living without it. In fact, though we've hated "Ma Bell," we knew that when the chips were down and the service went south, promises to show up to fix it were always honored.

Life in Mexico - The Weather Blues
[News-and-Society:Weather] The work on our next book has come to a screeching halt. No, it's not because of writer's block or some horrid disaster.

Study Foreign Language Abroad - A Scam?
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] What if, after repeated failures in trying to learn a foreign language, you read the following in a magazine: "Come and study in the land where the language is spoken. You cannot possibly learn a foreign language unless you come and enroll in a beginning, intermediate, or advanced course in the country where the target language is spoken." You ask around and everyone confirms that this is your only recourse.

Movie and Book Critics and Amazon
[Book-Reviews] Have you ever in your life avoided going to a movie or reading a book because of a review you read in the paper or heard on television? Have you ever skipped a movie or didn't buy that book because you allowed a creature, commonly known as a "critic," make your mind up for you? I can honestly say, with no fear of contradiction, that I've never ignored a movie or failed to buy a book based on the opinion of someone else.

Life in Mexico - Where's the Toilet Paper?
[Travel-and-Leisure] I received a very kind email from a reader in Canada who "accidentally" happened upon my column. She's married to a Mexican and has lived in Mexico for a while. She immediately identified with my writing since most of what I write is about living in Mexico.

You Have To Promote Your Books - No One Else Will
[Writing-and-Speaking:Book-Marketing] Someone once said, "You don't have to write something that is particularly good, just something people will buy to read." I've often given that advice to those who email me asking how to get started writing. It is excellent advice.

Living in Mexico - Music
[Arts-and-Entertainment:Music] I've observed that Mexican music falls into two classes. One is very, very good; the other is so horrible that it could quite possibly induce a nervous breakdown or at least a brain tumor after forced, prolonged exposure.

Living in Mexico - My Wife Was Attacked
[Travel-and-Leisure] In our first book, "The Plain Truth about Living in Mexico," I wrote a chapter about crime. In that chapter, I tried to drive home the point that by "comparison," Mexico is safer than the United States.

Life With Fibromyalgia Syndrome
[Health-and-Fitness:Diseases] The number-one question posed to my wife and I when strangers find that we live in Mexico is, "What made you decided to move to Mexico?" The answer is painfully simple. "I am afflicted with ..."

Living in Mexico - Culinary Surprises
[Travel-and-Leisure] I once was asked by a tourist here in my adopted central Mexican town, Guanajuato, if it was true the culinary delights here were nothing to write home about. I wanted to slap him silly but resisted the urge.

How To Become a Travel Writer
[Writing-and-Speaking:Writing] A lot of people write me asking how to become a writer. There is an easy answer to that question.

The Realities of Mexican Living Part III
[Travel-and-Leisure] I caught grief when I wrote a column about Mexican Beggars from none other than another Mexican. This fellow was incensed that I, an American, would dare to point out trouble spots in Mexican Culture. I mean, really, what am I but just another piece of gringo scum?

English Only Deli in Philly
[Travel-and-Leisure] Oh, this is rich: "Philadelphia's Geno's Steaks Adopts English-Only Ordering Policy Thursday, June 08, 2006 - PHILADELPHIA - Bistec con queso? Not at Geno's Steaks. An English-only ordering policy has thrust one of Philadelphia's best-known cheesesteak joints into the national immigration debate."

The Realities of Mexican Living Part II
[Travel-and-Leisure] Because of the flurry of e-mail responses I got from "The Realities of Mexican Living", I decided to write a part two. Hard as I try not to let them bother me, negative comments from readers still get to me. It isn't because I cannot cope when someone disagrees with me.

The Realities of Mexican Living
[Travel-and-Leisure] I had an interesting encounter the other day with one of my readers. Actually, every encounter with my readers is interesting. They are never boring. This lady read some of my articles about living in Guanajuato, Mexico.

Can I Work In Mexico?
[Travel-and-Leisure] Of all the questions we get from our readers, currently the most common is: Can I move to Mexico and get a job? The answer to the first part of that question is easy.

Prowling the Borders
[News-and-Society] I've been trying to comprehend a few things. I have been trying to understand the singular obsession the Minuteman Movement has about running all the "illegals" out of town.

Amazon - You've Got To Be Kidding
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Ecommerce] I have been in contact with Amazon.com over the past couple of weeks discussing an issue that I want to share with you. The issue is the "Reader's Review" section on each author's page with Amazon.com.

Who is the Real Chris Simcox of the Minuteman Project?
[News-and-Society] I have been trying to figure out what I would ask Chris Simcox, co-founder of the Minuteman Project-a fact of which I am sure he is very proud-if I could sit down and interview him. I have come up with the following: Is this what you really believe? "I've lived in Manhattan and I have lived in Chicago and I have lived in Los Angeles.

Is It an Issue of Legals vs Illegals - Is That All?
[News-and-Society] It is a matter of legal versus illegal - that's all? Do you mean illegal like the fact that 57% of the world's serial killers are born in Americans? Do you mean illegal as in the native born American high school males who plan mass slayings at their high schools? These kids, all born and bred in the U.S.A. want to kill everything that moves in their high school - is that what you are talking about when you say illegal? Do you mean illegal as in the fact that you cannot go to your...

Writing in Central Mexico
[Writing-and-Speaking:Writing] For those of you who are not trying to make a living writing, let me explain the process to you. First, you write the article that has been floating around in your head. It may be that the perpetual state of road construction in the central Mexican town in which you've expatriated has finally caused you to flip out, so you write an article.

Writing Makes Me a Nervous Wreck
[Writing-and-Speaking:Writing] If you've never written a book, then you probably do not know about the absolutely hair-raising, hair pulling, hair losing, event of meeting a deadline. It is somewhat like article or column writing. Except, when you write a book, you agonize to the point of losing sleep, losing your appetite, losing all desire for carnal pleasures, over the simple question, "Are there any errors in the manuscript?

What's In a Name?
[Arts-and-Entertainment] I had this friend I met in high school. He actually went to Shawnee Mission North, while I went to Shawnee Mission Northwest. We originally met in a church youth group and became friends. His name is Brent. So I thought.

I Love Living in Mexico
[Travel-and-Leisure] I love living in Mexico. I have never regretted our decision to move here. I love the people, the weather, the food, and the more relaxed pace of life that permeates the culture.

Internet Hijackers
[News-and-Society:Crime] The other day, the young woman who just moved into the studio apartment across the sidewalk from us came bursting out of the door, quite exasperated. "I can't get a signal. I just can't get it to work.

Writing for Free Pays
[Writing-and-Speaking:Writing] I am pleased to announce that because of the existence of the American Chronicle, and the kind tolerance of its editorial staff, particularly Peter who has had to endure a lot regarding yours truly, I have been noticed by a travel guide publisher. Because I was permitted to send in article after article to this online publication, I am able to take on some bigger, paid gigs. The way this works is that you write, a lot, and send your stuff into the American Chronicle for no pay.

Men Asking Men for Directions
[Travel-and-Leisure] Men, that is males of the human species, are genetically designed to be unable to take or give directions. This is a fact. There is no use trying to deny this. If you do, and you are male, then you are most certainly in a deep, psychopathic denial.

Why I Hate Computers, The Internet, and Mr Bill
[Computers-and-Technology] I have been meaning to write this column since the day I first bought a home computer in 1993. It probably was getting online that first prompted the desire to write this. What has been keeping me from writing this column until now is that every time I made an attempt, I would dissolve into a pool of tears and end up on the bed uttering vile profanities.

Tourists - Oh My Lord, Tourists!
[Travel-and-Leisure] How to tell when it is Tourist Season in Guanajuato, Mexico: 1. While sitting in the park waiting for your wife, you suddenly hear a barrage of English. You look around, only to witness an older couple fighting tooth and nail over where to go for lunch.

True Confessions of an ESL Teacher
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] I was once an ESL teacher-for one day. That's right, I taught English as a Second Language for exactly one day.

Turn The Other Cheek
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] I know that you, along with the rest of Western Civilization, are marveling at the Islamic world's reaction to a Danish cartoon which featured Islam's holiest of figures decked out in bomb headgear. I actually understand the issue of not presenting their holy figure as a "graven image" much less wearing a bomb-covered hat. I know some Christians who will not wear crosses or have pictures depicting Christ.

Mexican Independence and American Girlie-Men
[Travel-and-Leisure] Mexicans are some of the most self sufficient people on the face of the earth. The have had to be because no one comes to their rescue when they need help.

Mexico - The Honeymoon is Over!
[Travel-and-Leisure] I haven't posted my column in a while. I have been working on some manuscripts-books-that are finally ready to send to publishers. So I thought and thought, "what should I write for my column?" and I have come up with this...

Cell Phone and Children
[Communications:Mobile-Cell-Phone] I just heard from my sister in the U.S. who wished me a Happy New Year. She told me that my soon-to-be 14-year-old nephew got a cell phone for Christmas. I am trying desperately to understand this.

Do The Politically Oriented Really Think?
[News-and-Society:Politics] I've been wondering lately whether most Americans hold their political views from the hard and exhaustive work of thinking critically, examining arguments, and evaluating discourse. Or, do they merely fall in line with what everyone else thinks within their particular political party?

Mexico and The Art of Creative Begging
[News-and-Society] Here is an issue that is hardly endemic to Mexico - Begging. We used to live in Lawrence, Kansas. When we moved to the greater Kansas City area in 1996, the once-beautiful downtown district had become infected with your stereotypical panhandlers. I never kept up with how the city dealt with this issue.

The Mexico That Gives Me Fits
[Travel-and-Leisure] A friend who actually reads the stuff I write said this: "All you ever write about Mexico are the good things. Isn't there anything that ever gives you fits?" The bloody-honest truth is, "Yes, there are things which give me pause in Mexico."

Mexican Bus Riding Part II
[Travel-and-Leisure] After experiencing the writhing blob-surge of Mexican humanity getting on the bus, you will experience the same blob-surge of Mexican humanity inside the bus only it will cease to writhe. You will be immobilized. All you can do is think-moving will not be an option.

Bill O'Reilly Versus The Dallas Morning News
[News-and-Society] Bill O'Reilly of Foxnews is once again in a major snit: O'REILLY: "Enter Dallas Morning News columnist Macarena Hernandez, who wrote these astounding words: "Were the complainers angrier about the red, white and green Mexican flag fluttering in the Georgia air than they were about the horrific murders? Do they watch FOX's "The O'Reilly Factor," where the anchor and the callers constantly point to the southern border as the birth of all America's ills? It is one thing to want to secure the borders and another to preach hate.

Minuteman Cowboy Spin Doctors
[News-and-Society] It used to be hard to fathom-but no longer. There are Americans who would say the following in describing Mexicans, legal or illegal:

They're Back - The Minuteman Cowboys
[News-and-Society] Just like a bad penny that always seems to show up, guess who is back in the limelight soaking up the press that was diverted to more serious world-issues like hurricanes and wars: The Minuteman Project. So, let's have a look-see, shall we, at what antics and hijinks they've been up to since we last spoke:

Mexico - Four Seasons?
[Travel-and-Leisure] "Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall; All you have to do is call, and I'll be there..." but, Remember those words? It was a catchy tune. The four seasons--how does one explain them? They signal a time of change. Some people love the seasons to change with all of nature's colors and the temperature variations. Some people (me!) hated them passionately. Freezing to death in Kansas winters was never my idea of a fun and exciting time.

Mexico - Expat Quiz
[Travel-and-Leisure] The following is a quiz that every American expat wannabe to Mexico should be required by Mexican law to take. This will help you determine if moving to Mexico to spend the rest of your life here is right for you. It should be the basis whether Mexico issues you a visa to take one step onto Mexican soil.

Mexico - Dangers All Around
[Travel-and-Leisure] I love addressing Americans' fears about Mexico. If Americans are not thinking of every migrant worker, illegal or legal, as a potential serial killer, drug smuggler, or terrorist, then they are imagining all manner of misfortune and dangers that just have to abound in the country of Mexico itself.

Free Speech Gone Awry?
[News-and-Society] Just how can you know when Free Speech has gone awry, gone South, taken a detour from the life of America? 1. Free Speech is no more when.

From Time to Time - Free Speech
[News-and-Society] From time to time, I receive mail from a certain group of readers who are, for lack of a better phrase, "free speech challenged." How special is that?

Immigration - Ten Points to Ponder
[News-and-Society:Politics] 1. Why is it that no one seems to notice, much less ever mention, that the World Bank and the IMF have implemented economic measures that have left large sections of their populations unemployed and destitute?

Immigration and Clear Thinking
[Relationships:Dating] I get a lot of "reader comments" on the issues I choose to write about. This is a good thing for my editors since this means more readers and more readers mean more advertising revenue. It is good for me too in the sense that I do get some of the greatest writing topics from readers who write me. It can also be a bad thing...sometimes a very bad thing.

Kidnapping Americans in Nuevo Laredo - Mexico
[News-and-Society] I do not know if I can write yet another story on America's false perceptions of Mexico and the constant America media "spotlighting" of the criminal events that do occur here. I've written so many and then swear that I will not write another single story on this issue. But, you've got to hear this one.

Does America "Get It" About Terrorism?
[News-and-Society:Politics] I have to be honest. It is time to come clean. Though the rising cost of health care was indeed the primary reason my wife and I uprooted our lives and left America, it was not the only one. In very close competition was the issue of terrorism.

Are Illegal Mexicans Really Bad for America?
[News-and-Society:Politics] But, I have been thinking and, of course, I have been thinking about America's obsession with shutting down the Mexican-American border. You would wonder why I don't tire of this rhetoric and the reason is simple. America needs the likes of your humble and gracious columnist reminding them to get out of that box of uncritical thinking and untested assumptions.

Butt-Fried Rice
[Legal] One thing, of many things actually, that you find happily lacking in the Mexican press is the reporting of silly and insane lawsuits. Unlike in the United States, where people will sue each another for just about anything, it doesn't seem to occur (thank God) in Mexico. "He looked at me the wrong way and offended me.

American Tourists Say and Do the Craziest Things!
[Travel-and-Leisure] Each tourist season we collect these little anecdotes that American tourist seem so willing to provide. All we have to do is sit in the main plaza with pen and notebook in hand. Enjoy!

America: Get Your Priorities in Order!
[News-and-Society] Here is what irks me about Americans bitching about the Mexican border. There is the incessant, "Oh my God, some illegal may swim across the river" complaining. I could hurl over that!

I am in a Snit
[Travel-and-Leisure:Vacation-Rentals] I am in my yearly snit. Now my wife would contend that I am in a snitty mood daily and sometimes more often than that. However, I am in my Yearly Snit—it's the Tourist Season.

Anti-Minuteman Observer & Reporter
[News-and-Society] Dear Anti-Minuteman Observer and Reporter: These Minuteman yahoos are trying to tell me that if I really loved America that I would suddenly, like a light bulb turning on in my head, realize their cause was right and good and would let them come on my land and do God only knows what to those illegals the wife and I have coffee with every morning...

Logic Class 101 Applied to the Minuteman Project
[News-and-Society] Pre-Class Assignment: 1. Read "Phony-Baloney Detection Lessons #1-6" and "More on Phony-Baloney Detection" at the Blog footnoted below.[1] 2. Read L.A. Times article, "Border Watchers Gear Up for Expanded Patrol" at the website footnoted below.[2] 3. Using the principles of "Phony-Baloney Detection", see if you can find some glaring (and the make doo-doo in your pants frightening statements) errors in logic in the assigned L.A. Times article.

What If?
[News-and-Society] I have been thinking for days this question: What if all the "We want the "Legal and Illegal" Mexican Migrant Workers who are, among many things, brutalizing our schools with that demonic language of theirs" got their way and all the illegals were deported overnight? What if the Feds could find a way and did it and all the Mexicans, and believe me when I say they want all the Mexicans out of Dodge, were gone? What if this happened when you got up tomorrow morning?

More on Phony-Baloney Detection
[News-and-Society] There are some things that I failed to mention in the chapters on Phony-Baloney Detection. They came mind while writing chapter 19...

Phony-Baloney Detection Lesson #6
[News-and-Society] An argument is an Ad Hominem argument when someone attacks the person instead of his argument. That is an oversimplified explanation but sums up the basis of this argument. Instead of attacking the contentions or points of someone's argument, the person is attacked. This is a tactic to distract attention away from the propositions or points of the argument.

Phony-Baloney Detection Lesson #4
[News-and-Society] When someone who is debating an issue assumes the answer to the very point that is being debated, that argument is said to "Beg the Question". This is also known as circular reasoning.

Phony-Baloney Detection Lesson #5
[News-and-Society] People who spew and spout facts to support a position do so in one of two forms. They will state their proposition in a risky or non-risky form. You must learn, in the process of critical, linear thinking, to distinguish between the two.

Phony-Baloney Detection Lesson #3
[News-and-Society] The Straw Man In the science of critical thinking, the building of a Straw Man in argumentation is the building of a caricature or distortion of someone's position in order to attack more easily an opposing view. This happens all the time whenever there is a matter in dispute. I see this happen in the "Gay" movement and in the Evolution versus Creationism debate. It most certainly is true, almost unavoidably so, in the "Legal/Illegal Mexican migrant worker" debate.

Phony-Baloney Detection Lesson #2
[Arts-and-Entertainment:Philosophy] Appeals to Authority - Listen to this quote by a guy I am sure some of you have heard of: "Our society is dominated by experts, few more influential than psychiatrists. This influence does not derive, however, from our superior ethics or goodness or from any widespread consensus that we are especially admirable..."

Phony-Baloney Detection Lesson #1
[News-and-Society] The Proper Use of Statistics: There are a lot of facts, figures, evidence, and statistics in the "Illegal Mexican" controversy. Everyone has something to quote in the debate no matter on which side of the fence he or she is standing...

Can We Talk?
[News-and-Society] I couldn't sleep last night. This is something associated with my chronic illness. The pain becomes unbearable, I cannot sleep, and no amount of pain medication helps. I've been living with this since 1993.

America's Mexican Xenophobic History
[News-and-Society] America's present anti-Mexican Legal or Illegal Immigrant rage is nothing new. It is old news, very old news that surfaces every now and then and does so under the guise of concern for the imminent destruction of the American Republic.

An Old, Old Theme - Xenophobic Americans
[News-and-Society] An extremely old and familiar theme in U.S. history has been the episodic anti-foreigner xenophobia. So old, so familiar is this xenophobia, that at one time it was illegal in 22 states to teach a foreign language.

May 17 - A Dubious Anniversary
[News-and-Society:Pure-Opinion] The month of May, May 17 to be exact, marks the one-year anniversary of same-sex "marriage" in Massachusetts. I wonder how many Americans knew that or even cared. I wonder how many Americans care at all about this issue. I must admit some shock that any state at all rejected gay marriages in last year's elections. I was encouraged but shocked.

When Political Correctness in NOT a Virtue
[News-and-Society:Politics] The other day I was sucker punched, hoodwinked, bamboozled, had the wool pulled over my eyes, and generally sidelined by an expert in Political Correctness. In fact, so sidelined did I get that I have been depressed for a week-and I mean really depressed.

Cal Thomas at Fox News - What's Happened?
[News-and-Society] When I lived in the United States, before moving to Mexico, I used to depend on Fox News for a fair chance at hearing something halfway "fair and balanced" in the news. In the two years I have been gone from the U.S., something has happened.

Mexicans - Criminal Infestation or a Lot of Hype - Part One
[News-and-Society] If you have been following my columns (and if not, why not?), you know I am embarking on a series of articles, prompted by reader's comments on the "Illegal Alien" issue. Reader's Comment Two: How could you live in a country that is so dangerous?

Mexicans - Disease-Ridden or a Lot of Hype?
[News-and-Society] From time to time, I take time away from my book writing duties and my regular column writing to address the concerns and comments from readers. I get it all. I get some thoughtful, linearly constructed arguments and then I get the circularly argued ones that make my head spin just trying to figure out where they are coming from and what exactly they are trying to say.

Mexico - A "Third World Country"?
[News-and-Society] I haven't written much in the past 5 days because I've been a little depressed. Ok, I've been a LOT depressed. What happened is that I have a book coming out, something for which I should leap for joy, but am not.

Homosexuality - Let's Reopen the Debate Part II
[Relationships:Sexuality] In my first piece on this subject titled Homosexuality: Let's Reopen the Debate and published at Ezinearticles.com, I received readers' comments that have been pretty decent considering the inflammatory nature of the subject of the essay. I always appreciate readers' comments, even the loony ones, and I do try to think through them to see what I can learn as well as see if I've made some glaring error in my prose.

Jesse And Al Should Read This!
[Business:Careers-Employment] Instead of getting all bent out of shape over innocuous remarks made by the President of Mexico, perhaps the Lord and Prince of African-American Ideological Imperialism (that's Lord Jesse and Prince Al) should know just how Americans apply for those jobs they so vehemently claim Mexicans are stealing...

America - The Land of Untested Assumptions
[News-and-Society] I feel like my head is about to explode. If I read one more insane, irrationally argued op-ed about President Vicente Fox, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton I might spontaneously combust or something worse. I just don't know.

Can You Believe This?
[News-and-Society] I was reading this morning that in November 2004, Congress approved all the $16.2 BILLION dollars NASA sought for its 2005 budget. Can you even fathom that much money?

Those Dirty Mexicans - Oh, Really?
[Arts-and-Entertainment:Humanities] When my wife and I announced that we were moving to Mexico, one of my wife's relatives asked us, "Why do you want to live with those dirty Mexicans?" Besides wanting to slap some sense into this person, I was particularly sickened (as in wanting to projectile vomit Linda Blair-style) by this hideous and most heinous stereotype. I have wanted to know since then where this originated.

Mexican Living - Yet Another Reason!
[Travel-and-Leisure] I was telling someone the other day (and this took a while too) all the 99,999 reasons we left America and moved to Mexico. This morning I ran across reason number 100,000 on an online news source; Houston has outlawed stinky body odors.

Mexican Living - Bathroom Warnings
[Travel-and-Leisure] You potential male expatriates must bear something in mind if you plan to move to Mexico. Apparently it is a normal sight to see women walking into men's public rest rooms while one is trying to take care of business.

Mexican Living - House Buying
[Real-Estate:Buying] The Mexican Adventures of Mavis and Clovis: "Clovis, get your butt over here right now and look at this here house!" "Mavis, it's a right purdy house but we don't need no house right now."

Mexican Living - Solving the Ugly American Syndrome
[Travel-and-Leisure] We, and who I mean by we are those who moved to Mexico to spend the rest of our lives sincerely absorbing the culture and language, have to got to come up with a solution to the Ugly American Syndrome. I think I have-at least partially. If you have been reading my columns (and hopefully memorizing them), you know that I've been reporting the Ugly American Syndrome is alive and well in the expat communities in Mexico.

Mexican Living - Sidewalk Rules
[Travel-and-Leisure] If I had to point to just one cross-cultural similarity between Mexico and America, it would be this: How they walk on sidewalks. They do it absolutely the same way!

Mexican Living - Respect Your Elders
[Travel-and-Leisure] A question sent to me by a reader was, "How are the Elderly treated in Mexico?" Our personal observation has been that they are venerated to the point of being called sages. I have heard more than once of Mexican young people referring to their Elderly relatives as sages.

Mexican Living - Traditional Mexican Eating
[Travel-and-Leisure] I have been a little preoccupied lately with my diet. The reason being is that I am too fat! The doctor told me that I am now Senor Tubby and I need to lose some weight. I am suffering from some blood sugar issues and this is, as you know, not good.

Mexican Living - Christmas
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] I have no memory of Christmas, 2003. Now before you jump to one of those, "Oh, yeah we know," conclusions let me say that both my wife and I were deathly ill from some flu bug that we contracted while visiting San Miguel de Allende.

Mexican Living - The Things that Charm Us
[Travel-and-Leisure] When you move to another country, it those things that you have there that you did not have from whence you came, that you may find the most charming. Mexico is a place of exquisite charm for no other reason than because it is Mexico! There are things here that you would never dream of seeing in the United States.

Mexican Living - Bus Travel Mexican Style
[Travel-and-Leisure] When I was in college, in the prehistoric days, I was a veteran bus traveler. I am not talking about the city buses but the kind you would take from city "A" to city "B" three states apart.

Mexican Living - Pasatiempo
[Writing-and-Speaking:Writing] It occurred to me one day that I needed something to do with my time when I wasn't writing. You know-something to divert myself so more writing ideas could come to mind. One cannot sit in front of the computer screen all day waiting for an idea to come knocking at the door and say, "Here I am."

Mexican Living - San Miguel de Allende
[Travel-and-Leisure] Long, long ago in a faraway land called Mexico (you may have heard it) was a small, insignificant, flat piece of real estate located in the highlands of Central Mexico. Ringed by mountains, this "low region" was founded and by a lowly and humble Franciscan monk named Juan de San Miguel in 1542.

Mexican Living - Today's Obsession
[Reference-and-Education:Languages] I would like to talk about one of my many obsessions: learning Spanish. I have been thinking about this lately mostly because I am under the impression that, though I've lived in Mexico for two years, my Spanish sucks in a major way.

Mexican Living - Let's Be Perfectly Clear
[Writing-and-Speaking:Writing] Readers often send me interesting and exciting e-mails about the op-ed pieces I write and manage to publish. As a writer, I get all sorts. Some are actually encouraging. Then there are those who say, "This is YOUR fantasy, not the reality I have seen." Or, they ask, "Your point is?"

Bill O'Reilly - You Got This One Wrong!
[News-and-Society:Politics] I like Bill O'Reilly. I do. I have read two of the man's books, all his columns, and when I lived in the United States, I listened to the "O'Reilly Factor." I agree with him on many issues. I do so not because of his political worldview but because he makes sense, most of the time, and challenges me with the facts - he makes me think. Nevertheless, I am afraid we have to part company regarding his stance and support of the Minuteman Project.